The life of the official Zhernov is composed of four basic elements: an office plagued by annoying subordinates, two bottles of port wine after work, dialogues with the cleaning lady, and office sex with the amorous Dina. Boris Dyshlenko, a star of the Leningrad underground and laureate of the Andrei Bely Prize, takes this “black square” and playfully stretches it over twenty years of Soviet-Russian history—only to demonstrate that absolutely nothing changes in the life of the protagonist or the country, despite all the “social processes.” In this cycle of stories, published in its entirety for the first time, Dyshlenko appears not only as a virtuoso of dry, humorous writing but also as an heir to Beckett and Kafka.